For fun I was checking out college basketball's scoring leaders for the past 5-6 years and i've noticed a pattern. In the top ten, there's only a small handful of players that have actually panned. And by "panned out", I don't mean played 1-2 years in garbage time either. Another thing I noticed is in just about every draft there's always a player or two in the 11-15 range that has developed into a solid NBA player. Here's the top ten of the past few years in total points scored (not PPG)..... 2001/2002 1) Jason Conley, Missouri 2) Henry Domercant, Eastern Illinois 3) Mire Chatman, Texas-Pan American 4) Nick Stapleton, Austin Peay 5) Keith McLeod, Bowling Green 6) Steve Logan, Cincinnati 7) J.R. Bremer, St. Bonaventure 8) Jason Williams, Duke 9) Dwayne Archbold, Sienna 10) Rasual Butler, La Salle * 15) Drew Gooden, Kansas 2002/2003 1) Henry Domercant, Eastern Illinois 2) Ruben Douglas, New Mexico 3) Mike Helms, Oakland 4) Michael Watson, UMKC 5) Troy Bell, Boston College 6) Chris Williams, Ball State 7) Keydren (Keekee) Clark, St. Peter's 8) Luis Flores, Manhattan (all you V-Span lovers should remember this guy) 9) Willie Green, Detroit * 10) Jermaine Hall, Wagner 11) Chris Kaman, Central Michigan 12) Carmelo Anthony, Syracuse 2003/2004 1) Keydren (Keekee) Clark, St. Peter's 2) Luis Flores, Manhattan 3) Mike Helms, Oakland 4) David Hawkins, Temple 5) Michael Watson, UMKC 6) Kevin Martin, Western Carolina * 7) Odell Bradley, IUPUI 8) Andre Emmett, Texas Tech 9) Bryant Matthews, Virginia Tech 10) Ricky Minard, Morehead State 13) Ike Diogu, Arizona State (starting to come around, looks due for a breakout year) 2004/2005 1) Leonard Hopkins, North Texas 2) Steven Smith, La Salle 3) Taylor Coppenrath, Vermont 4) Keydren (Keekee) Clark, St. Peter's 5) Hakim Warrick, Syracuse * 6) Ike Diogu, Arizona State 7) Omar Thomas, UTEP 8) J.J. Redick, Duke 9) Juan Mendez, Niagara 10) Ronnie Price, Utah Valley State 12) Ryan Gomes, Providence 14) Andrew Bogut, Utah 2005/2006 1) J.J. Redick, Duke 2) Adam Morrison, Gonzaga 3) Keydren (Keekee) Clark, St. Peter's 4) Quincy Douby, Rutgers 5) Steve Burtt, Iona 6) Trey Johnson, Jackson State 7) Andre Collins, Loyola (MD) 8) Alan Daniels, Lamar 9) Rodney Stuckey, Eastern Washington 10) Nick Fazekas, Nevada 16) Paul Millsap, Louisiana Tech ....and for this year's scoring leaders...... 2006/2007 1) Reggie Williams, Virginia Military 2) Trey Johnson, Jackson State 3) Kevin Durant, Texas 4) Morris Almond, Rice 5) Gary Neal, Towson 6) Bo McCalebb, New Orleans 7) Jaycee Carroll, Utah State 8) Rodney Stuckey, Eastern Washington 9) Stephen Curry, Davidson 10) Adrian Banks, Arkansas State 11) Caleb Green, Oral Roberts 12) Alando Tucker, Wisconsin 13) Arizona 'AZ' Reid, High Point 14) Loren Stokes, Hofstra 15) Jarrius Jackson, Texas Tech Going by this logic, perhaps this is our man: Alando Tucker? He's projected to go late first round/early second round which is right where we're picking and we could always use a solid 2/3 player. In all seriousness though, on that list you have Kevin Martin, Willie Green, Hakim Warrick and Rasual Butler as the only players in college basketball's top ten in scoring that have actually done anything in the NBA. Kind of scary. I guess this isn't good news for all you Durant and Almond fans. Note: I didn't include Morrison because I think he's been somewhat disappointing and feel you could plug in any similar player into his role in Charlotte and could have gotten the same or better production.
Ive been saying it all along. Alando Tucker is our guy. He isn't outstanding potential wise but he can score. Tucker will be solid. Almond will disappear like he did against Memphis.
i dont think you can just look at stats and come to the conclusion that certain guys will be busts and others wont. you have to look at their tools and abilities, along with their measurables and intangibles. almond has very good basketball IQ. an NBA ready body with solid athleticism and a pure stroke from the perimeter. he drives to the hoop when his shot isnt falling and he draws fouls to get to the line where he shoots 85%. now, if almond was 12th in scoring and alando tucker was 4th, what would you be saying then? tucker's jumpshot is inconsistent and his quickness on the defensive end isn't all that great. his height is around 6'4-6'5 and he's going to be playing SF because of his lack of quickness to play the 2. not to mention, he sucks at the free throw line. heck, greg oden isn't even close to being in the top 20 in scoring, but he's slated to go 1st. so what does that tell you about stats? also, morris almond wont be the focal point of the offense on this team. tmac and yao will. when almond struggles against better teams like a memphis, he's probably being double teamed a bunch and is the focal point of the opposing team's defense. there is a reason why morris almond will be around in the late 1st. simply because he played at a smaller school. alando tucker was the best player on a very good team that played in a major conference. so why are both slated to go in the same area of the draft? because of tucker's deficiencies as a player. with the numbers tucker put up, and in the conference he plays in, he should be going alot higher than late 1st by just looking at the stats. but you can't just look at stats when evaluating players.
htownbball, It was merely an observation. Obviously, there's a tad bit more to judging basketball talent than inflated college statistics alone. I just thought it was interesting that in most cases the top scorers in college basketball either never panned out or never even came close to making it in the pro's meanwhile there were pleasant surprises every year in the 11-15 range. Just an interesting pattern I noticed. Nothing concrete or anything to bet the house on. We're picking at the bottom of the first round. It's basically a crapshoot. Just having some fun with it.
It's a bit early to call JJ Redick a bust (actually the same could probably be said for a couple of other guys like Quincy Douby and Ike Diogu), you dismiss Morrison without any real reason, and Jay Williams was in a motorcycle accident, he didn't bust for lack of ability. Sometimes we look too hard for patterns.
I agree that it's obviously too early to judge some of these players and I almost left last year's draft off altogether, however it still demonstrates my point that the top ten is rather weak meanwhile somebody in the lower teen's has emerged rather unexpectedly to coincide with the "pattern" I noticed. Morrison, as I mentioned in my first post, hasn't impressed me. For a guy selected #3 overall he's shamefully one dimensional. Sure, he can light it up at times but he's completely useless when his shot isn't falling. He's soft, gets lit up like a Christmas tree on the defensive end and certainly isn't going to rebound or distribute the ball at all. You could plug any similar player into that role and gotten similar or better production. As for Jay Willams: same difference. Sure, he probably had the talent to succeed but if you want to nit pick -- so did Dajuan Wagner and his career got sidetracked because of all his health problems. Hell, he had his entire colon removed.
Actually, one thing I want to see stat wise is the top 10 scorers of each college season of players in a power conference (Big 12, Big 10, SEC, etc.) on teams that made the NCAA Tourney. I think you'll see slightly more correlation with the NBA stars. I don't exactly know what the answer is, but if you truly have "too much time on [your] hands] ......
i agree...but i think at our drafting position, the guarantee type of player are those with good work ethic, and also a passiona for the game. a kid with enough skills and heart can survive ion the nba.
